Rasmea Yousef Odeh goes to trial

October 31, 2014

Palestinian-American Rasmea Yousef Odeh was the director of the Arab American Action Network and a community activist for women’s rights and empowerment, when she was arrested in October 2013 by the Department of Homeland Security. Odeh is accused of “immigration fraud” because she allegedly answered “no” on an immigration application to the question of whether she had ever been convicted of a crime. In 1969 Odeh was convicted in Israel of terrorism, based, in part, on a written confession. She maintains the confession came after being tortured and raped. Odeh and her attorneys also allege that her positions on Middle East issues, including the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, are behind her prosecution. Odeh’s trial starts on Tuesday Novemeber 4th. We’ll speak with her defense attorneys, Jim Fennerty and Michael Deutsch. They maintain that Odeh’s case is part of a pattern of U.S. government harassment to silence social justice, anti-war and environmental activists.
(photo: In this Oct. 22, 2013, file photo, Rasmieh Yousef Odeh stands outside the federal courthouse in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast, File))